Thread: William Henry Graham -In Canada

I am searching for information about this fellow, William Henry Graham. He was born about 1784 in Ireland according to census reports for 1871. He had a child named James Sweet Graham by Martha (Pattey) Sweet. The only source record we can find for him is this 1871 census when he is living in James household and very elderly. We have never found his wife.

All of the information we have comes from that given by James on his marriage registrations and this census. James named his first born son after his father.

Anyone have any clues about this brick wall we have?

This could be them in 1851:



Province of Ontario, Leeds County, sub district Escott



William, age 66, born about 1786 Ireland, farmer, religion Church of England

Martha, 56, 1796 Ireland, wife, C of E

Joseph, 26, 1826 Canada, laborer, C of E

Charlotte, 22, 1830 Canada, C of E

Alice, 17, 1835 Canada, C of E

Claressa, 14, 1838 Canada, C of E



Lisaw

This same family in 1861, Escott, Leeds Co:



Graham, Joseph 35 farmer b. U.C. (Upper Canada), religion C of E

Martha 62 b. Ireland states she is a widow

Charlotte 30 b. U.C.

Alice 22 b. U.C.

Thank you for the responses but we KNOW this family is not ours.

That's good - it looks like a different family.

I took a long shot hoping someone would have some clues as to when our Wm. left IReland - he's a real brick wall.

Canadian passenger lists are very incomplete prior to 1865.



Have you tried contacting someone at Leeds County?

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~onleedsg/

There's a land petition for William Grant, Leeds in 1830 here:

http://www.ontariogenealogy.com/database.html



Sorry, I'm not familiar with that part of Ontario. Hopefully someone else can be of more help.



I'll send you a pm

Well here is the interesting part: Martha shows only as a notation on son James marriage registration. We cannot find ANYTHING that actually puts her in Canada. The rest of her family migrated to Perry, Ohio. We don't see Martha.

A family story says William was an alcoholic and a brute so there is the possibility James was raised by someone else and Martha/Pattey hit the road.

There are other Sweets in Prince Edward, Northumberland and Hastings Counties of Ontario (they are neighbouring counties on the north shore of Lake Ontario). So far we can't find a connection, but there is always the possibility Martha/Pattey belonged to one of these and perhaps died in childbirth? There do not appear to be any other siblings which is unusual for that era.

We have two different birth years for William. If we go by the earlier one he was pretty old to be having his one and only KNOWN child. Some speculation says he had another child named Sarah Dingman but this has not been substantiated.

Unfortunately big chunks of the 1851 census are gone so there is always the possibility William and Martha were in one of these townships.