Links Family History Blog

Introducing Cole FAN: Henry A COLE.   In an earlier post,  "Cole FANs: Joshua Levi Cole" , I introduced the youngest child of my brick-wall ancestors - and founding Canadian COLE family members - Henry "Harry" COLE (Abt. 1790-1849) and his spouse Elizabeth "Eliza" CHURCHILL (Abt. 1790-1875). Now meet Joshua's oldest sibling, Henry A COLE. Fig. 1: The immediate family of Henry A COLE (1812-1897) (click to enlarge) Henry A COLE was the oldest of nine known children born to Canadian founders and parents Henry COLE and Elizabeth CHURCHILL. Of Irish Palatine and English-Irish descent, Henry was (probably) born in Ardcanny, County Limerick, Ireland and baptized on June 7, 1812. At the age of 12, he immigrated to Canada with his parents and younger brother Peter (and possibly sister Mary Jane) and settled near Streetsville in Toronto Township, Peel County, Ontario.  Not a lot of information survives about his family’s early years. But it is known that Henry’s...

Continued Progress. In an earlier post, I introduced a family mystery and a controversial family question:  Who was the biological father of my paternal grandmother?  In a recent update to that post, I discussed my approach and early progress on developing a research plan for identifying my grandmother Fern ELDER's biological father. Fig. 1: Fern Caroline ELDER in early 1954 In working to develop the broader research project plan, it became clear that a lot of traditional research would need to be performed to try to answer this research goal, with no guarantee of success. Without even a name for my grandmother's biological father, it would be like searching for a needle in a haystack - not impossible, but definitely labour-intensive. The question had to be asked, "Was this effort necessary? Or was the answer already before me in research already done, or in DNA test results and associated matches already available?" The answer was, "Possibly." So, I paused...