Vintage Hamilton (Ontario)

Very few of you will likely have relatives in Hamilton Ontario but I wanted to give a shout out to a lively discussion group here. If by chance you do have a connection to my city who knows what you might find. In any case I encourage you all to find an on line group that pertains to an area you are interested in or maybe even start one yourself.
We lived in Hamilton between 1968-1972 and I've recently returned to live here so although I have no deep roots in the city I am interested in it. Vintage Hamilton uses archival and other photos and often looks at "then" vs "now " and as you can see a single photo can lead to all kinds of reminiscences.

Please Note: This link is is on Facebook.

 

No relatives that I know of in Hamilton but I did find recently that blood relatives (surname Booker) emigrated from Sussex to Ontario in 1836. Initially, they lived in Toronto but by 1881 census they had moved to Rainham/Cayuga in Haldimand, just south of Hamilton. I really should try to trace them nearer to the present day.

I did drive through (over) Hamilton several times in 1967 via the Skyway. I was working in New York and visited work colleagues who had emigrated to Toronto. I made a couple of journeys to visit Niagara Falls but did not stop in Hamilton.

BTW, the frozen Niagara Falls featured in the TV news last night here in NZ. I hope that you are not inconvenienced too much by the cold. I know that Ontario gets cold weather every winter but this year seems to be particularly severe.

 

Hi Bryman, I am sure you have put your Booker family on your ancestors page at LC and it looks as if families of that surname were still going strong on the 1911 census for the same area. Let me know if you have any further information because I might take a trip down to Port Dover sometime this summer and may pass through Cayuga. Incidentally I found an old Rootsweb chat about a William Booker from Walberton Sussex would that be a familiar name?
Inconvenience would be an understatement some days for how I feel about a second winter of brutal cold, including one day when it felt like -40 deg C which is also -40 deg F ! When I commute up to Toronto to work there is supposed to be a below ground connection (PATH) from the main train station to much of the business and shopping areas. However for the past three years there's been a massive renovation of the station area all done at once with PATH in total disarray so when time is limited there is no choice but to stay above ground. In past years we've trudged through mountains of slush at every intersection and I'm not sure we wouldn't trade that for the current big freeze.
I've just read that as much as 80% of the surface of the Great Lakes are frozen, it's not unusual for this happen every 5 or so years but two years in succession is highly unusual. Unlike the Eastern seaboard ( I'm sure many of you have seen photos of the Boston area) we haven't had a lot of snow just that it has never melted and the below normal temperatures are accompanied by strong winds and thus the dreaded wind chill.
One consolation is that it's now getting noticeably lighter each morning by 7 a.m. and we've had some spectacular sunrises and sunsets.

 

I have no idea how common a surname Booker was in Toronto back then, but this caught my eye as I have a distant relative who emigrated to Toronto in the mid 19th century, and his daughter married an Edwin Booker in Toronto in 1876.

I guess any connection is pretty unlikely but I thought I'd mention it anyway.

 

I have indeed added several Booker family members of Canada from the 1881 census. Two brothers, George (1817-1898) and Thomas (1825-1890), emigrated from Walberton separately in the period 1835-45. Their younger brother, William Edward (1833-1900) is probably the person that you are referring to, stayed in Sussex and is one of my matches with Liberty, a member of this forum.

George had a daughter, Jane (1856-1939), who married Thomas' son John (1852-1923) in 1874 (first cousins). John also had an elder sister called Jane - doesn't life get difficult? I believe that John and Jane had three sons, Burtie (1875), Amos (1878) and Charles (1880) but I am finding the Canadian records harder to access/navigate than the English transcriptions. I have that George married Ruth Leggett before emigrating and that Thomas married Sarah Leggett in Canada but I have not confirmed the dates nor whether Ruth and Sarah were related. I see this getting very complicated and very easy to make the wrong connections.

I think there were several families that emigrated from Walberton and the surrounding district at about that time so there could well be a connection to be made although I do not have an Edwin Booker identified in my tree (yet). I will let you know if anything crawls out of the woodwork.

 

I am very interested in Ontario, my "Dodd" family had 3 boys who were sent over to London, Ontario in 1903 as "Home Children" when their mother died.

I was contacted by descendants and we visited them last year. They had a reunion in August of many of them, we visited Stratford, Owen Sound, Kitchener, Simcoe and various cemeteries, churches, places of interest in and around the area, we then left the two families we stayed with and toured round - visiting by train Ottawa, Quebec and Montreal, plus Toronto and even down to Niagara a lovely time in all.

 

Welcome to the forum lesleymargaret, I am so glad to hear you enjoyed your visit to our beautiful province last year . The area you visited has a rich and well preserved history in terms of records, more so than buildings generally. Keep an eye on the Canada section as those of us who live here try to add items of interest from time to time.

 

A quick glance at Family Search shows just four Booker(s) in Toronto in 1881 ,Edwin age 33 Louisa age 24 and two children . I presume you thought them too distant to enter on LC if this is the right family? By 1911 the information about him is more complete at the Automated Genealogy site and he is one of five Bookers in the Toronto area , although it appears that in 1901 there were at least double that number.

 

You are quite right as the reference I have given to Pauline above is from a free site and one I find a bit odd. However a quick look at that site confirms just how solidly your Booker family ensconced themselves in the Haldimand area and I found that quite interesting. At the Ontario Genealogical society site you will find a free listing of some of the Haldimand area cemeteries for the Booker family as well. They span entries from the late 1890's up to our current century. I'll go back and check what is on the OGS page under Canadian resources and add another comment if necessary

 

Yes, that's them. Louisa is the one I am very distantly related to, so I know about her ancestry. However, yesterday I had a quick look to see what I could find on Edwin before he emigrated and didn't get very far. According to the marriage entry his parents were Joseph and Ann, and from censuses etc as well, born c1846-8, but I couldn't find any confirmed sightings of him.

I haven't entered Edwin in any census entries at LC. Normally I extend my research to siblings of ancestors, along with their spouses, but I don't go any further down those lines. However, one exception is that I have done a fairly broad study of the Solman family from Yalding, Kent, Louisa being one of many descendants of that family, and as yet I haven't added any of these more distant Solman relatives to LC.

 

It would appear that there is an entry for this Edwin Booker in the Canadian Passenger lists at Ancestry which might offer further clues about him, but viewing the details requires a Worldwide subscription whereas mine is only a UK one. (I included his approximate dob and year of immigration from the 1911 census - 1871 - in the search, so it seems likely to be the right Edwin.)